Liberty's Munson Diner gets new name, new life

LIBERTY — Rockabilly music wafts from a radio as waitress Ashelynne Osnato yo-yos between tables of diners and the window to the kitchen where Stu Weitz darts around. Employees from Formagio Cheese called in a big order. Other customers include Sheila Fix of Liberty, eating with relatives from South Carolina.

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By Leonard Sparks

recordonline.com

By Leonard Sparks

Posted Nov. 24, 2012 at 2:00 AM

By Leonard Sparks
Posted Nov. 24, 2012 at 2:00 AM

» Social News

LIBERTY — Rockabilly music wafts from a radio as waitress Ashelynne Osnato yo-yos between tables of diners and the window to the kitchen where Stu Weitz darts around. Employees from Formagio Cheese called in a big order. Other customers include Sheila Fix of Liberty, eating with relatives from South Carolina.

The grill sizzles and booths bulge with people at the former Munson Diner, which gained fame as a setting on TV's "Seinfeld." But that fame had not been enough to keep the doors open long when the diner was trucked up from Manhattan and set up in Liberty in 2005.

Weitz, an audio-visual technician who once ran Stu's Kitchen in Fallsburg, is the latest rescuer. Gone is the investors group that brought the diner to the village and leased it to optimistic operators. Weitz owns the place outright, symbolized by a new name: Stu's Lake Street Diner.

Weitz reopened the diner about two weeks ago. He is optimistic about rending success out of a business that has spent more time closed than open. A cheering village crowd had greeted the diner's 2005 arrival. But more than two years passed before the investors found someone to lease and operate the place. Most recently, it had closed in December 2010.

Liberty residents Kathleen and Jeffrey Root paid $11,000 for it in June at the county's foreclosure auction. Weitz then negotiated to buy the property.

The menu is small by choice. Weitz says it allows him to focus on dishes like slow-cooked Spanish chicken in red-beer gravy, and slow-cooked ribs. Meat in the steak sandwich is carved fresh, and burgers are made of fresh Angus beef on toasted buns.

The goal, Weitz said, is to make the diner a "destination." "It's going to have such a unique look," he said. "I want to shine this building up like a new penny."